Customs and Revenue start CIO search

The soon-to-be merged Inland Revenue and HM Customs and Excise are advertising for a chief information officer, who can expect to earn a salary in excess of £100,000 a year.

Advertised this weekend in The Sunday Times, the 'director general'-level position offers a 'six-figure' salary plus additional pension benefits.

The successful applicant will take on responsibility for more than 2,350 staff, and manage outsourcing deals worth nearly £4bn.

The successful candidate is likely to come from outside the civil service, given the current levels of dissatisfaction with government IT, predicted Jim Norton, senior policy advisor at the Institute of Directors.

But he added that to oversee such a mammoth integration project would require more than just IT skills.

"What they need is someone good at IT and implementing business process change," said Norton.

The government is also currently seeking an overall head of e-government to replace the e-envoy, Andrew Pinder.

The prime minister told civil servants earlier this year that senior positions could be filled by candidates from the private sector, as there was no longer room for talented amateurs.

Last week, the Treasury Sub-Committee was told that the Revenue and Customs appointee would play a vital role in delivering the cost savings anticipated from merging the two departments.